Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Judgement Flip

As she sat in our living room, she prayed, “Please send
people into our lives who will confront us on our sin.”

What a strange prayer.
It was prayed by one of our closest friends recently when she and her
husband spent some time in prayer with Sasha and me. Earlier in the day we were talking about the
biblical response to sin.

To be more accurate, we were talking about the biblical
response to the sinner. There are two
responses, and it all depends on who the sinner is.

If a person commits a sin and he is not part of the Church,
we are not to judge him. After all, we
would be just like him if it were not for the Holy Spirit’s work in our
lives. On the other hand, if he is part
of the Church, we are to judge
him.

This topic is addressed in several
places in scripture, but it perhaps summed up the best in 1 Corinthians 5:9-13:

I wrote to you in my letter not to
associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the people of this
world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this
world. But now I am writing to you that
you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is
sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or
swindler. Do not even eat with such
people.

What
business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”
(NIV; emphasis mine)

Our friends who were visiting that day were dealing with
some fellow believers who were behaving in a sinful way. Recently, we have also had to deal with unrepentant
immoral behavior by a fellow believer.
Jesus outlined what to do when you come across sin in the Church.

If a brother or sisters sins, go
and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them
over. But if they will not listen, take
one or two others along, so that “every matter may be established by the
testimony of two or three witnesses.” If
they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to
listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or tax
collector. (Matthew 18:15-17 NIV)

Keep in mind that this is a procedure to be used with
Christians only. Those who are not
Christians cannot be held to the moral standards of those who have a personal
relationship with God. We are not to
judge those outside the church, but we are expected to judge our brothers and
sisters. As Solomon said in his wisdom, “Wounds
from a friend can be trusted.” (Proverbs 27:6)

This is where we as Christians often make a critical mistake. We are not to judge those outside the Church,
and we are to judge those inside the Church.
Yet we reverse it. We judge the
world as if we are in the place of God, and we ignore the immorality in our
midst.

As a result, we fall into a dangerous trap where church
leaders slander their brothers and are not held accountable for their
actions. Brothers and sisters fall into
immorality and we are told that we should just accept them as they are. Greedy swindlers are given places of honor in
the congregation. Drunkards are not
confronted out of fear that they might not come back to church if we say
something.

At the same time we disassociate with those outside the
Church who are stuck in their cycle of self-destruction. We avoid those who need us most. We do the very thing Paul seemed to consider ridiculous. We “leave the world.”

I have seen too many righteous men and women fall because of
ignored immorality and un-confronted sin.
As a body of believers, we need to gently correct those who mistakenly
slip in their walk with the Lord. We need
to get in the faces of brothers and sisters who willfully disobey the God’s
moral law. We need to disassociate from
those who un-repentantly continue in immorality.

Our brothers and sisters in Christ should be a gift to us
when we go astray. They should keep us
on track. This is why I join my sister
in her prayer.